1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a riding toy and, more particularly, to a novelty riding toy for children with educational and entertaining purposes.
2. Prior Art
Numerous examples of toy vehicles, such as automobiles, trucks, ambulances, racing cars and the like can be found in the art. The primary purpose of these toys is to provide means for children to entertain themselves. Some of these toy vehicles are designed to be ridden by the children. They can be propelled by pushing the toy or by pushing pedals which in turn drive the toy. These toys which a child pushes by placing his or her feet on the ground while sitting on the toy and pushing with his or her legs can be dangerous because other children may push the toy while the rider's feet are on the ground, causing the rider's feet to be caught under the toy and injured. These riding toys do not have any means to prevent children from being injured in this manner.
Toy vehicles generally are not designed to serve an educational purpose, even though there is an increasing focus on this function. For example, some dolls are designed to teach infants how to dress themselves and some electronic toys are designed to teach children to associate animals with the sounds they make or to learn addition or spelling.
Toy vehicles found in the prior art, however, are only intended to amuse children, and not to teach them. However, it has been found that children often tend to quickly lose interest in walker toys of this type and that as a result, they often prefer to crawl rather than working toward the development of early walking skills. Although toy vehicles exercise children's imaginations and sometimes their bodies, they do not attempt to teach children in the same sense as “educational” toys.
Accordingly, a need remains for a novelty riding toy for children, which overcomes the above-noted shortcomings.